Fannie, Freddie bleeding

Home mortgage giant Fannie Mae has again asked taxpayers for more money after reporting a first-quarter loss of more than $13 billion.

The outfit said Monday that it needs an additional $8.4 billion from the government.

Fannie Mae says it lost $13.1 billion, or $2.29 per share, in the January-March period of 2010. That takes into account $1.5 billion in dividends paid to the Treasury Department.

And the recession is supposed to be over?

Late last year, the Obama administration pledged to cover unlimited losses through 2012 for Freddie and Fannie, lifting an earlier cap of $400 billion. The rescue of Fannie Mae and sister company Freddie Mac is turning out to be one of the most expensive aftereffects of the financial meltdown. The new request for aid will bring Fannie Mae's total to $83.6 billion, the total bill for the duo to nearly $145 billion.

Wow. The most expensive bailout of all? Guess that's why Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are targeted for the most heavy-handed restructuring and scrutiny, imposing a mold-breaking "brand new way of doing business" under Sen. Chris Dodd's controversial new Senate financial reform bill, right? Um ... no. In fact, the Senate "financial reform" package doesn't mention Fannie or Freddie at all.

Together this pair of outfits own or guarantee almost 31 million home loans worth about $5.5 trillion. That's about half of all American mortgages.

The two companies bought up all sorts of risky loans from banks after the lenders -- under pressure from Democrats to promote home ownership for otherwise unqualified borrowers -- loosened their standards during the real estate boom.

But with the housing market still on shaky ground, Obama administration officials tell The Associated Press it's too early to draft proposals to reform the two companies or the broader housing finance system. Which is a bit like saying that with the ship still sinking by the bows, it's still too early for the Titanic to launch its lifeboats.

Meantime, the administration -- which vowed to be the most transparent White House in history -- has refused to cooperate with a Freedom of Information Act request from Judicial Watch regarding the agencies. The Federal Housing Finance Agency claimed: "Any records created by or held in the custody of the Enterprises reflecting their political campaign contributions or policies, stipulations and requirements concerning campaign contributions necessarily are private corporate documents. They are not 'agency records' subject to disclosure under FOIA."

Why would the administration be intent on keeping records of Fannie's and Freddie's campaign contributions secret? Perhaps because, through 2008, Sens. Chris Dodd and Barack Obama were two of their three best-funded beneficiaries?

Congressional Republicans argue the sweeping financial overhaul currently before Congress is incomplete without a plan for Fannie and Freddie. They propose transforming Fannie and Freddie into private companies with no government subsidies, or shutting them down completely.

Will Democrats agree to such sensible steps? Or will they prove to be the intransigent, reactionary "Party of No"?